Intaglio with Helios Set in a Ring

This intaglio shows Helios, the sun god, wearing a radiate crown and a cloak fastened at his neck. He holds a patera in his right hand and a whip in his left. This gem belonged to Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel (1585-1646), one of the greatest collectors of antiquities in England and a friend and patron of Sir Peter Paul Rubens. The gem is encased in a 17th-century gold and enamelled mount.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Thomas Howard, fourteenth/twenty-first Earl of Arundel, Arundel House, London, 1638, by purchase [William Petty as agent] [Arundel Collection A, no. 48]; Aletheia Talbot Howard, Arundel House, London, 1646, by bequest; Henry Frederick Howard, fifteenth/twenty-second Earl of Arundel, Arundel House, London, by 1652, by gift; Henry Howard, sixth Duke of Norfolk, Arundel House, London, 1652, by bequest; Jane Bickerton Howard, Arundel House, London, 1684, by bequest; Henry Mordaunt, second Earl of Peterborough, by 1690, by purchase; Mary Mordant, Drayton House, Northamptonshire, 1697, by bequest; John Germain, Drayton House, Northamptonshire, 1705, by bequest; Elizabeth Germain, Knole House, Kent, 1718, by bequest; Mary Beauclerk Spencer, 1762, by gift; George Spencer, fourth Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, ca. 1765, by gift [Marlborough no. 266]; George Spencer-Churchill, fifth Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 1817, by bequest; George Spencer-Churchill, sixth Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 1840, by bequest; John Spencer-Churchill, seventh Duke of Marlborough, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 1857, by bequest; Sale, The Marlborough Gems, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 28 June 1875, p. 41, lot 266; David Bromilow, Bitteswell Hall, Leicestershire, ca. 1875, by purchase; Julia Bromilow Jary, Bitteswell Hall, Leicestershire, 1898, by bequest; Sale, The Marlborough Gems Purchased by the Late David Bromilow, esq., Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26 June 1899, p. 47, lot 266; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1899, by purchase [Dikran Kelekian as agent]; Sadie Jones (Mrs. Henry Walters), New York, 1931, by bequest; Joseph Brummer, Paris and New York, 1941, by purchase [Brummer inv. no. N5143a]; Walters Art Museum, 1942, by purchase.